THE WOMAN IN HIS DEAD WIFE'S WEDDING DRESS

Celandine did not run.

That was the first thing Percival noticed.

A guilty person might have stepped backward, looked toward the stairs, or invented an answer before anyone asked the question.

Celandine simply stared at Evelina’s letter.

“I never met your wife,” she said.

Isabetta folded her arms.

“How convenient.”

Percival ignored her.

“Then why would Evelina write that someone under my roof helped her hide evidence?”

“I don’t know.”

“You recognized the dress.”

“I recognized the pearl flowers because I repaired them three weeks ago.”

Percival looked sharply at her.

“The gown has been locked in this room for eighteen months.”

Celandine hesitated.

Then she admitted the second secret.

Three weeks earlier, Isabetta had sent her upstairs with the same brass bedroom key and ordered her to repair a loose section of embroidery before the engagement reception. Celandine had thought the request strange, but Isabetta had claimed Percival wanted the dress restored before donating it.

Percival had ordered no such thing.

While Celandine worked, she found a second layer of fabric inside the hem.

She had never cut it open.

But she had felt something flat beneath the stitching.

Isabetta’s face became completely still.

“Bring me the dress,” Percival said.

They spread it across Evelina’s bed.

Celandine carefully opened the old repair seam.

A folded strip of red leather slid onto the sheet.

It was not a letter.

It was the torn cover of a small ledger.

Stamped into the leather were three gold initials.

B.S.C.

Percival recognized them immediately.

Briarstone Shipping Company.

The company had once belonged to his father. After his father’s death, control of its charitable trust had passed jointly to Percival and the family solicitor, Benedict Shaw.

Evelina had volunteered to review the trust accounts shortly before she died.

Percival had forgotten that detail.

Now it returned with brutal clarity.

“She told me something was wrong with the numbers,” he said quietly. “I told her Benedict would explain it.”

Margot Bell, still standing near the vanity, whispered, “Did he?”

Percival did not answer.

He was remembering the final week of Evelina’s life.

She had argued with Benedict at dinner.

She had asked Percival to cancel a trip.

She had tried to tell him something in the carriage house.

He had been late for a meeting.

He had kissed her forehead and said they would speak that evening.

They never did.

Her carriage went over the east bridge before sunset.

The police called it an accident.

Benedict Shaw handled every legal detail afterward.

Isabetta moved toward the door.

Percival blocked her path.

“Where are you going?”

“To leave. This engagement is clearly over.”

“You brought an actress into my house dressed as my dead wife.”

“And you are accusing everyone except the woman holding your wife’s secret.”

Celandine’s eyes flashed.

“I told you I never met her.”

A voice came from the doorway.

“She’s telling the truth.”

Everyone turned.

An elderly man stood there in a black dinner coat, one hand resting on a silver cane.

Edwin Rooke had been the Hawthorne family’s head gardener for thirty-two years. Arthritis had forced him to retire six months earlier, but Percival had invited him to the reception out of respect.

Edwin looked at Celandine.

“She never met Mrs. Hawthorne.”

Then he looked at Percival.

“But her mother did.”

Celandine’s face drained of color.

Percival’s eyes narrowed.

Edwin removed an old envelope from inside his coat.

“Your wife gave this to me four days before she died. She made me swear I would deliver it only if a girl named Celandine ever came to work in this house.”

Celandine stared at him.

“My mother never worked here.”

“No,” Edwin said.

“She worked for Benedict Shaw.”

The ballroom music continued below them.

Guests laughed.

Glasses touched.